Articles Posted in Trucking Technology

While my trucking litigation law practice is in Atlanta, Georgia, I know that long haul trucking safety is not just an American issue.  With the long distances between populations centers in Australia, all the challenges facing American truckers are big deals there too.  Driver fatigue, for example, is every bit as big a problem for…

Handling trucking accident injury cases in Georgia, I see the aftermath of plenty of crashes that could have been avoided if drivers had a timely “wakeup call.”  Now the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and several corporations are funding  a University of Michigan study of  a high-tech system to help car and…

As a Georgia lawyer representing people who are hurt in trucking accidents – and the families of those who are killed – I see too many cases where it appeared that a truck driver was deeply fatigued, was over the legal hours of service, and had a paper log that was not accurate. A study…

Interstate motor carriers and their drivers are required to make and maintain logs showing the driver’s hours of operation, activities and locations of stops. The potential for abuse is so legendary that paper logs are often referred to as “comic books.”  Many truck drivers have told me, off the record, of the impossible pressure on…

Here’s an intriguing video about the problem of side underride and the lack of side underride guards on trailers in the US. In viewing this, imagine what happens when a driver comes upon a tractor-trailer pulling out of a side road or driveway at night at highway speed. I showed this at a trucking litigation…

This week in several states, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) are sponsoring “Operation Safe Driver.” This involves increased enforcement roadside enforcement on commercial motor vehicle rules, including fatigued drivers, seatbelts, etc., and educate non-commercial drivers about sharing the road with trucks. Unfortunately, there can never be…

The latest twist in the controversy over opening US highways to Mexican trucking companies is that Qualcomm has contracted with the FMCSA to provide participating companies free access to its satellite tracking system for one year under NAFTA. The systems will be installed at no cost to the trucking companies and will be used to…

I have written several times this year about proposals for toll lanes for trucks on metro Atlanta interstate highways.  An article this week shows another reason why this may become a necessity. The Georgia Department of Transportation expects to spend $160 billion on road construction projects between 2005 and 2035. But revenues from the motor…

TheFederal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is providing to motor carriers a guide to available onboard safety and security products.  The guide has been published on the FMCSA  website (www.fmcsa.dot.gov). Safety systems highlighted are collision warning systems with adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning systems, rear object detection systems, tire pressure monitoring systems and vehicle stability…

The American Transportation Research Institute, the research arm of the American Trucking Associations, released the results Sept. 12 of its industry analysis of using the recorders to monitor driver hours. The ATRI research does contradict perceptions that the devices would hurt driver morale and retention. A surprising 76 percent of users said the recorders had…